What a Bark

By Prantik Mitra

The slightly late morning walkers at the Nerul Jewel of Navi Mumbai Park were witness to a bizarre sight.

On a wooden bench along the pond was spotted a middle-aged man holding a mobile phone in his hand, intermittently bringing it close to his mouth and barking into it like a dog. He was holding the mobile phone placed on his palm in his right hand with the phone speaker pointing towards his mouth. He would bark at it like a dog, look at the phone then place the phone on the bench, shake his head in despair with a visible frown, and start all over again.

He was trying to bark in various ways with different modulation of tone as if trying to mimic the bark of every breed of dog in the world. Initially, nobody took much notice as most of the regular morning walkers were more concerned about their weight and health and the irregular ones were more concerned about the bulge of their tummy and tended to huff and puff rather than notice anything usual or unusual.

The morning was rolling by.

However, word got around the park. A lazy morning walker who was walking slower than a snail had a little extra time which he devoted to observing this man. Unable to decipher the cause and because of the man’s behavior he informed a few more morning walkers and as the morning walkers circled the park while walking and crossed each other in their third-round or the second round they usually whispered, “have you noticed the man barking”?

Like a wave traveling through the air, almost every morning walker now knew about the barking man.

Few who had to rush to office decided not to bother, as their call of duty got better of their curiosity, left the park. Most of the balance who were left around as if answering to the call of a pied piper gathered around the man barking into his mobile. Curiosity had now taken over the initial nonchalance.

It was around 10.00 AM, and the heat of the sun was not exactly at its pleasant best but irrespective of the heat of the sun and the medley of people gathered around him the man kept barking away at his mobile while the onlookers looked at him with bewilderment.

The man was so focused that he hardly noticed the crowd gathering around him.

The Veterinarian among the crowd started identifying the different types of barks. Once he said that this bark was that of a Pomeranian, once he said it was that of a bulldog, once he said it was that of a pug, and so on. The actor in the crowd said that this person was surely a voice-over artist, and he was practicing various types of barks and recording them in his mobile recorder.

Mr. Sharma and Mr. Kelkar two senior citizens approached the man to stop him and quiz him on what he was up to. They tiptoed together in geriatric style and stood in front of the man. Suddenly the man stopped barking, kept the mobile on the bench, raised his head, looked up at them, and put a finger on his lips indicating to the two senior citizens not to make a sound. He then picked up the mobile again, punched patterns and codes into it, raised it to his mouth, and started barking into it again this time a very strong loud bark.

The bark was so loud and so sudden that the two senior citizens were caught unawares and almost jumped up with the suddenness of the bark and quickly retraced their steps back to the onlookers grouo as fast as their old legs could carry.

Once back to the group they said that the man was perhaps new to the park, and they had not seen him before.

Some advised calling the police, some advised calling a doctor thinking that the man had perhaps lost his mind, and some said that he be best left alone. Suddenly Yogesh the young lad of 25 and a known footballer approached the man and in a stern voice shouted “Hello, can you stop this? What do you think you are doing”? The man looked up at Yogesh and replied, “Look dear can I be left alone? Is this not a public place? Am I not allowed to sit here?” “But” said Yogesh “you are behaving strangely”? “That should not be your problem”, replied the man with utter defiance.

The group of onlookers neither wanted a fight nor an unpleasant scene and thus requested Yogesh to leave the man alone.

In the meantime, few people had recorded the act of the man in their mobiles and shared it through various social media. The video had gone viral and was creating quite a wave.

Suddenly another man was seen running in this direction as if approaching the barking man. While he was running towards him he was calling out, “Devender, Devender, Devender”. As the running man approached the barking man and the barking man could hear him, he looked up. It was now clear that the name of the barking man was Devender. Devender looked up at the running man, stopped barking, and ran towards him and they hugged each other. The onlookers then saw Devender explaining something to his friend as they both sat on the bench with hands on their heads and a look of desperation on their faces.

The group slowly approached them and then Jignesh (as that was the name of the running man) looked at the group and explained.

Devender had downloaded a new app on his mobile which provided nice four-layer security. One level was a pattern, the second level was a numerical code, the third level was fingerprint, and the fourth level was voice identification. Devender had come to the park and had decided to sit on the bench beside the pool to enable the security features. He had completed the first three and was about to complete the voice identification.

Now the voice identification was real-time as you had to press the recorder on the app, record the voice note and do that all in 10 secs to enable it.

However, as soon as Devender had pressed the recorder and was about to record his voice a dog that had walked close behind the bench unnoticed had started barking. In the process of shooing away the dog the 10 secs had elapsed, and the mobile had locked itself with the fourth level of security having identified the bark of the dog as the voice note.

After having realized this Devender was left with no option but to try and bark into the app recorder hoping to mimic the dog bark and thereby unlock his phone. He had also walked round and round the park to identify various dogs to try to get them to bark into his mobile.

The onlookers now had a sympathetic look on their faces as they now realized the gravity of the situation and started consulting with each other. Led by the senior citizens in the group they decided to help.

A plan was chalked out.

They would spread themselves across the park and round up as many dogs as possible and bring them to this area of the park where Devender was sitting. A food delivery boy came to help to state that he was carrying two chicken delivery orders and he could distribute chunks of chicken amongst them to lure the dogs to this area of the park.

The vegetarians amongst the sympathizers detested this idea stating that they would not touch the chicken chunks but would still manage to round up dogs. The entire group broke up into ones and twos with the idea of reconvening at this point of the park in the next twenty minutes.

After about twenty minutes with great difficulty and with a lot of huffing and puffing around 12 dogs were rounded up and lured to this area of the park. The chunks of chicken had helped. The vegetarians had faced a greater challenge as it was easier to round up dogs with chicken than without it.

Anyway, around 12 dogs of different shapes, sizes, and colors were there now.

It was quite a scene. Twelve dogs sitting, squatting, and standing in and around the bench. The action was now slated to start. A dog lover who also identified himself as some sort of a dog trainer took over. He collected the balance chunks of chicken and walked to the center of the pack. He explained the process he would adapt to make the dogs bark and Devender would be given a cue by the trainer at the right moment to start the app.

The trainer raised his hands in the air, looked at all the dogs one by one, opened both his palms to reveal the chicken chunks, winked at Devender as a signal to start the recorder which Devender did, jumped in the air, cried out a long yeeeeeelllllpppppp and scattered the chicken chunks in and around him.

The dogs rushed towards the chicken, each of them barking in their style but the crowd was looking at Devender. The countdown to ten seconds had begun. But for the barking of the dogs, you could have heard the pin drop.

Suddenly Devender jumped up in the air with joy and all rushed to him. Devender was almost dancing now as the phone had got unlocked.

Everybody was shaking hands and patting Devender. Mission accomplished.

After about a week Devender wrote a letter to the app company complaining that while twelve dogs were barking in unison the phone had unlocked and this amply proved that there was a flaw in the app. He demanded compensation. The app is supposed to recognize one voice note and not a disorganized chorus.

After about another week Devender got a letter from the MD of the App Company thanking him for narrating the incident and inter-alia telling him that this incident went a long way to prove the great success and efficiency of their app as the app even amidst the bark of twelve different dogs could recognize that one bark through which the voice identification was set.

They called it the best advertisement for their app and requested permission from Devender to post this as an ad on various social media.

As per last information, Devender had been avoiding all types of dogs in his locality and on inquiry would only mutter “Every dog has its day”.

By Prantik Mitra